“I Deliver Parcels in Beijing”: Chinese Literary Sensation Reaches U.S.
Hu Anyan, once a courier, turned his grueling experience into a best-selling book exploring labor, technology, and daily survival in modern China. Over the years, Hu has worked nineteen different jobs across six cities — from selling bicycles and running a clothing store to working night shifts at a logistics warehouse and crafting 3D architectural renderings. Eventually, he became a courier, a role that profoundly shaped his writing.
The Road to “I Deliver Parcels in Beijing”
At 46, Hu transformed his working life into a memoir-style narrative, capturing the realities of couriers with humor and vivid detail. His book, I Deliver Parcels in Beijing, published in 2023, struck a chord with readers who recognized their own struggles within China’s rapidly evolving gig economy.
“Readers embraced his frank anecdotes about stressful deliveries, angry customers, and life in vast residential complexes,”
The book highlights not only the physical exhaustion couriers face but also the emotional toll of being seen as replaceable within an ultra-efficient e-commerce machine. Many readers identified with themes of financial instability, social stagnation, and the loss of fulfillment in modern work.
From Local Success to Global Audience
Now, as translator Jack Hargreaves prepares the English edition, Hu shares insights into his creative process and discusses the future of labor in an era increasingly driven by automation. His reflections invite an American audience to grasp the human stories behind the packages they receive.
“Around 2009, I was running a women’s clothing store in Nanjing — a painful job,” Hu recalled.
This moment, he explains, marked the beginning of his turn toward writing and introspection — a journey from courier to celebrated author capturing the pulse of working life in China.
Author’s Summary
Hu Anyan’s transformation from courier to acclaimed writer reveals the unseen lives behind China’s e-commerce boom and explores universal struggles with dignity, purpose, and labor in a mechanized age.
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